“Search your feelings, Buzz. You know it to be true.”

The easiest way to win my heart over is, of course, with a Star Wars reference (that’s not why I rated this movie so high, by the way, it’s actually really good).

My relationship with the Toy Story franchise is very similar to that of a lot of people. I’m definitely in the boat that thinks (no, knows) that Toy Story 3 was the absolute perfect ending, and further sequels weren’t necessary. Does that mean that any sequels would inevitably be bad? No. In fact, there are several completely unnecessary sequels to stories that very much came to a conclusion that really work (Blade Runner 2049, Creed, Shrek 2). Unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case with Toy Story 4, as that film never really justified its existence in any new meaningful way (I have a review for that movie for more in-depth thoughts), so you can imagine how much my eyes rolled into the back of my head when Toy Story 5 first got announced. However, my thoughts and pessimistic feelings about it completely reversed once I heard what it was going to be about.

Pixar used its best IP to tell a story that correlates so much to our real world, and I’m really happy to say that it turned out really well. In case you don’t know, this movie’s main themes are all about how modern kids have been lost so much to technology that they are truly missing out on all of the best parts of childhood. Actual real friendships, communication, and obviously, playing with toys. I’m only nineteen years old, and even then I was doing all of these things as a kid, but especially since the start of this decade, it seems that a huge shift has happened where technology is almost how kids get their social life satisfaction, all on a screen away from people, rather than actually interacting with people.

And we get to really see this through the eyes of Bonnie, the owner of all the toys. The main emotional anchor of Toy Story 5 is that she still longs to play with her toys, but since everyone else her age is addicted to screens, she has a really hard time making any friends. Some of the scenes where we see other kids on their Lilypads (the new big tech everyone in this movie is raving about,) hit really hard despite their subtlety because of how frighteningly realistic they are. I’ve been out in public, especially in places like restaurants, where kids just have this absolute obsession with the screens they are using, and their eyes tell you just how much which was shown in such a realistic way here. This is where the existence of Toy Story 5 makes so much sense to me. Yes, you could have told a similar story without this franchise to support it, but it just wouldn’t have hit the same. When you put toys into the picture, a thing that is already starting to become a remnant of the past with children, everything hits so much harder. What proves how good Toy Story 5 is is that it still would have worked remarkably well even if none of the other movies existed.

Speaking of a Lilypad, Bonnie’s eventual Lilypad is the central antagonist of this entry, and she definitely earns her place as one of the better Toy Story antagonists along with Prospector and Lotso (though Lotso will never be topped). She starts off fairly obnoxious at first, but fairly quickly becomes pretty compelling as we learn that she really does have Bonnie’s best interests at heart, which also helps correlate with the themes even more. Despite what the trailers may have felt like, Toy Story 5 thankfully doesn’t portray technology as something that is explicitly bad. It frames it more as something that just needs to be used in the right way, and I found that far more compelling than if they would have went the other route.

While it might not be my favorite film in the series, in fact, it’s only number four, which proves just how good these movies are, it sure is, and it’s not even remotely close, the funniest one. This actually made me laugh out loud several times, which I always point out in my reviews when that happens because my taste in comedy is so weird that it rarely does actually happen. Forky remains fantastic, though I wish he was in this a little bit more, but a new toy is introduced named Smarty Pants, and he is absolutely hilarious. Maybe I’m still a kid at heart, but he is a toilet trainer toy that you can imagine makes for some really hilarious moments. There are several other funny bits, too, mainly including our main Buzz Lightyear, as well as the new “updated” versions, and what they do with that is so “out there” and ridiculous in the best possible way. Oh, and by the way, the comedy from the toilet trainer and a couple of other new toys is most definitely why this was the first Toy Story movie to get a PG-rating instead of just G (no sexual innuendos that I could find if you're worried about that as a parent, both of other sorts).

The last thing I’ll say here is that this is probably the best we’ve seen of Buzz and Woody together since maybe even the original Toy Story. They obviously don’t have the conflict between each other that they had in the original movie because they figured it out by the end of that one once Buzz found out he was a toy, but their dynamic and chemistry remains relentlessly entertaining. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen give very enthusiastic voice performances as their respective characters, and their characters’ brothership is and always has been so much fun to watch. This series simply couldn’t exist, or at least wouldn’t be the same without them.

But the big elephant in the room is in fact that Woody is back after his ending in Toy Story 4. This didn’t turn out be a negative for me personally, as I wasn’t a big fan of that film to begin with, but if you were a fan, I can easily imagine that bothering you quite a bit because his return definitely does feel pretty rushed and abrupt. That being said, what I just said about this franchise not being the same without Buzz and Woody definitely applies here with this film as well, so I can forgive the writing on that part because there would have undeniably been something missing from this if Woody wasn’t in it. It’s just kind of a weird sacrifice the writers had to make in order for this story to work.

As far as the mixed goes, it’s Jessie’s whole character arc, who essentially serves as the main character of the story this time around. I definitely lean more positive on this than negative, but there is still one minor gripe that I have with it. For a decent chunk of the runtime, her emotional journey feels rather forced and ineffective, as it was getting pretty hard to really get why she was feeling the way she was. It was just something that needed to be a little bit more fleshed out to really deliver completely. What makes me lean more positive on it is that Toy Story 5 does what every Toy Story movie has done (even 4), by hitting you like a train emotionally by the end. Her arc’s conclusion almost brought me to tears, which is really saying something. It was such a clever and effective surprise that harkened back to her past, and was easily the best scene of the entire movie.

The main thing that holds Toy Story 5 back from being truly great is its story structure, which definitely feels pretty unfocused at times. At the beginning, I had absolutely no clue where it was going or what the end goal was going to be, which isn’t always a bad thing but definitely impacted this movie. There are several side scenes with, without getting into too much detail, the new Buzz Lightyear models that felt extremely out of place at first with the actual story happening, and every time it cut back to it I was really confused as to how it was eventually going to connect. Thankfully it does connect at some point, but when it wasn’t clear what was happening it did impact the pacing just a little bit.

Adding onto that, while this very much has an ending that feels extremely intentional and satisfying, the journey to get there was quite messy structurally. The two big parts of the plot are the story with Jessie, as well as all of the things going on with the Lilypad, and for quite a while the movie never really knew which one it wanted to focus on more, which made them both feel almost like side plots instead of one being the central one. They also don’t really ever meaningfully tie together in any significant way, at least from a thematic standpoint. They do come together eventually in a strictly narrative sense, but again, not in a way that had anything to do with the themes of the movie, which made it feel a bit unsatisfying in that regard.

But negatives aside, this was easily one of the most pleasant surprises of the year so far. While that might really say something about the state of Pixar at this point, it still remains a movie that both warrants its existence as well as its inevitable success.